Cyrillic

Yuri GherchukCyrillic letter in Russian culture

Friday 19 September | 09:40 – 10:30 | Session B01 in Palace B

Cyrillic came to Rus’ with the Holy Writ; that defined the public attitude toward it, as a collection of sacred, inviolable signs, and slowed down the evolution of its letterforms. That is why even the Westernisation of the printing type undertaken by Peter the Great centuries later, did not affect the type of the clerical books, which kept its mediæval look. As to the “civil”, secular type, often developed abroad, it followed the evolution of the Western, Latin type—from Baroque to Art Nouveau. The æstheticism of early 20th century cultivated the artistic, handcrafted lettering, and the constructivism imparted a new significance to the sans serif types available with the printers. A serious interest to the development of new typefaces, to the Cyrillisation of the best Western designs, and the adaptation of Cyrillic to the new typesetting technologies resumed only in the second half of the 20th century. Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

This presentation is an overview of “The First Books Printed in Civil Type”, the digital collection prepared by the Rare Book Department of the Russian State Library in 2008. The collection consists of 32 digital versions of the first Russian books printed in Civil Type, published in Moscow in 1708–1711. This was a period in which the forms of new Russian printing (‘civil’) type started to settle. Peter the Great, the emperor of Russia, personally chose foreign books for translation to Russian, determined the appearance of the editions, their size, form and cover design. The digital renderings of the books contain many details important for understanding the essence of Peter’s typographic reform. Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

Olga Florenskaya has opened the topic of Vernacular domestic lettering in the mid-1980s, when she started collecting the particular examples of non-professional forms of lettering in the cityscape. She has published the book “Psychology of domestic lettering”, where she has described and analyzed the numerous examples taken from the real life. Most of the items of her collection had a practical use. Olga pays a particular attention in her research to Cyrillic peculiarities of vernacular lettering. The session will be illustrated with numerous items from Olga’s collection. Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

Tagir SafayevDiscovering the Cyrillic letterforms of Cheltenham through the century

Friday 19 September | 14:00 – 14:50 | Session B04 in Palace B

The Academy was created in circa 1908-10. The typeface was based on Sorbonne, which represented the ATF rework Cheltenham of 1896 and Russian typefaces of the mid-18th century. In 2008, I designed the Cyrillic extension for NYTimes Cheltenham. Between these dates — a century. The lecture focuses on the diverse approaches to the understanding Cyrillic letterforms based on the Cheltenham family through the last century. The novelty in typography is really modern not only and rather by itself, but it discovers and builds new links with the past and exists (until it exists at all) due to these links. Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

Alexandra KorolkovaA walk along the fence

Friday 19 September | 15:00 – 15:50 | Session B05 in Palace B

There are many fences in Russia, of different kinds and purposes. Also, the Cyrillic alphabet contains a lot of stems; it was a feature of Cyrillic since the script appeared, and it is sometimes called “Cyrillic Fence”. Now the local designers suppose it to be one the main problems of Cyrillic. There were some tries to change the lettershapes but they were quite unsuccessful. Maybe there are some ways to make “fence” look better without radical changes of lettershapes? The presentation is rather entertaining than serious one. Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

Calligraphy exerts a positive—correcting and stimulating—influence on
the development of creative skills of the students of high schools and
art colleges. Such conclusions have been drawn from the speaker’s
36-year experience of teaching lettering and calligraphy at various
educational facilities in Russia and Ukraine, to the students belonging
to different age groups. References to the legacy of Paul Luhtein, the
speaker’s own teacher and mentor, as well as the views of master
calligraphers Villu Toots and Albert Kapr, the opinions of scholars,
speaker’s own observations serve to corroborate and explain this
phenomenon.
Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

Alexey DombrovskiyArt of the First LetterRussian decorative book initial used in 15th–early 18th centuries

Dmitry KirsanovModern serif in Russia

Saturday 20 September | 09:30 – 10:20 | Session B08 in Palace B

What Russian typefaces can be considered as the first Modern Serifs? What types influenced more on the development of this style in Russia: Didot or Bodoni? What reasons have induced Bodoni to create Cyrillic font? Whether Didot typefaces were used in Russian printing houses of the beginning of 19th century? What Russian typefaces of Modern Serif have been revived during the Soviet period and what are the new designs? The author will try to answer these questions. Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

Konstantin StartsevTypography in the student livre artiste projectsContemporary typography in the book studies. Based on the experience of St. Petersburg State University (Faculty of Philology and Arts)

Saturday 20 September | 10:30 – 11:20 | Session B09 in Palace B

In his lecture “Typography in the student livre artiste projects” Konstantin Startsev describes his methods of teaching typography at the Department of Graphic Design of St. Petersburg State University. Both the images projected on screen, and the physical samples of the actual books designed and manufactured by the students illustrate his talk. The works of Konstantin Startsev’s students won many awards at the national and international design competitions.
Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

Maxim Gurbatov, Anna ChaykovskayaBook of lettersThe parting from the era of wood type

Saturday 20 September | 11:40 – 12:30 | Session B10 in Palace B

We were very impressed with history of old typographical sorts, wood and metal letters. Throughout its history, they were important elements of European culture. Now they are not wanted. We want to express gratitude them. We have old typographic wood and metal letters and make large art objects called, for example, The Tetragrammaton, The Monument of Unknown Accountant, The Four Seasons in Russia. The object called “MЖ” consists of letters M and Ж only — there are the letters beginner the words Man and Woman in Russian. There are mainly large compositions — to 2 m in breadth. We dedicated our project to Gutenberg’s era. Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

Timothy DonaldsonResurrection pencilWhat I learned from the “marks that speak”

Saturday 20 September | 14:00 – 14:50 | Session B11 in Palace B

During research for my recently published book, “Shapes for sounds”, I investigated the Glagolitic alphabet created by the brothers Cyril and Methodius. This alphabet was the mother of Cyrillic. I learned to write the letters, an activity that took on a life of its own and led to a body of interpretation bordering on the obsessive. My talk will focus on the history, development, and subsequent abandonment of the Glagolitic alphabet and will show the new drawings, sculptures, scripts and typefaces I have produced as a result of this investigation. Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes

Anna ShmelevaScript typefaces and graphology

Saturday 20 September | 17:20 – 18:10 | Session B14 in Palace B

As far as a script typeface is a derivative from human handwriting, it can be graphologicaly analysed. Graphologycally speaking, any script face designer constructs an imaginary personality that is not realised by the readers but it’s influence on them can be noticable. Typefaces can be sanguine or phlegmatic or choleric or melancholy. Of course we should never forget that the method is most applicable for real handwriting, not for type designs – but using it for typefaces provides a lot of new information. And even more: armed with graphology, can we turn from analysys to synthesis? Theme: Cyrillic | 50 minutes